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United States Patent | 5,317,372 |
Nakabayashi ,   et al. | May 31, 1994 |
In a document feeder, documents are contained on a document rest in a stacked state. These documents are sequentially transported to a specified exposure region on a table glass member of a copying machine by a feeder and transporter and are then exposed. The documents are then discharged again onto the document rest. The documents are thereby circulated for copying. When the documents are small in number, the documents are not discharged until a copying operation of a necessary number of sheets is completed, and the documents are moved back and forth for exposure between a transport path of the feeder and the transporter. This design enables the time required for copying a small number of documents to be shortened.
Inventors: | Nakabayashi; Masayoshi (Wakayama, JP); Matsumoto; Manabu (Nara, JP) |
Assignee: | Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Osaka, JP) |
Appl. No.: | 996645 |
Filed: | December 24, 1992 |
Dec 26, 1991[JP] | 3-345180 |
Current U.S. Class: | 399/370; 271/35; 271/111; 271/233; 271/291; 271/301; 399/79 |
Intern'l Class: | G03G 015/00 |
Field of Search: | 355/308,311,316,318,320,321,23,24,208,309 271/35,111,233,301,291 |
3499710 | Mar., 1970 | Sahley | 355/271. |
4179215 | Dec., 1979 | Hage | 355/313. |
4553828 | Nov., 1985 | Burger et al. | 355/318. |
4739983 | Apr., 1988 | Ide et al. | 271/233. |
4825248 | Apr., 1989 | Honjo et al. | 271/111. |
5120039 | Jun., 1992 | Yamada | 355/308. |
5203554 | Apr., 1993 | Suzuki et al. | 271/291. |
IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, vol. 18, No. 2, Jul. 1975, "Dynamic Sheet Length Sensing", W. E. Church, J. D. Froula, (Copy in 355/311). |